legal and
established succession was broken. The convention did not assemble under
any preceding law. There was a _hiatus_, a syncope, in the action of the
body politic. This was revolution, and the Parliaments that assembled
afterwards referred their legal origin to that revolution.

Is it not obvious enough, that men cannot get together and count
themselves, and say they are so many hundreds and so many thousands, and
judge of their own qualifications, and call themselves the people, and
set up a government? Why, another set of men, forty miles off, on the
same day, with the same propriety, with as good qualifications, and in
as large numbers, may meet and set up another government; one may meet
at Newport and another at Chepachet, and both may call themselves the
people. What is this but anarchy? What liberty is there here, but a
tumultuary, tempestuous, violent, stormy liberty, a sort of South
American liberty, without power except in its spasms, a liberty
supported by arms to-day, crushed by arms to-morrow? Is that _our_
liberty?

The regular action of popular power, on the other hand, places upon
public liberty the most beautiful face that ever adorned that angel
form. All is regular and harmonious in its features, and gentle in its
operation. The stream of public authority, under American liberty,
running in this channel, has the strength of the Missouri, while its
waters are as transparent as those of a crystal lake. It is powerful for
good. It produces no tumult, no violence, and no wrong;--

"Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong, without rage; without o'erflowing, full."

Another American principle growing out of this, and just as important
and well settled as is the truth that the people are the source of
power, is, that, when in the course of events it becomes necessary to
ascertain the will of the people on a new exigency, or a new state of
things or of opinion, the legislative power provides for that
ascertainment by an ordinary act of legislation. Has not that been our
whole history? It would take me from now till the sun shall go down to
advert to all the instances of it, and I shall only refer to the most
prominent, and especially to the establishment of the Constitution under
which you sit. The old Congress, upon the suggestion of the delegates
who assembled at Annapolis in May, 1786, recommended to the States that
they should send delegates to a convention to be hold